CCHR Freedom of Expression/Human Rights Defenders Alert
– Phnom Penh, 28 August 2013
Ratanakkiri Provincial Court finds two accused not
guilty in the case of murdered reporter
Today the Ratanakkiri Provincial Court announced
its verdict in the case of murdered reporter Hang Serei Oudom and found the
husband and wife charged with the brutal murder not guilty. The decision was
based on an apparent lack of sufficient evidence to warrant a conviction.
Hang Serei Oudom, investigative journalist for The Vorakchun Khmer Daily in
Ratanakkiri, was found bludgeoned to death in the trunk of his abandoned car on
11 September 2012. None of his possessions were missing, ruling out any
suspicion of random robbery. Hang Serei Oudom had been reporting on illegal
logging in the area and the last article he contributed to before his death, published on 6 September 2012, accused the
son of a local military police commander of being complicit in illegal logging.
On 13 September 2012, local military officer
An Bunheng and his wife, who owned the restaurant where Hang Serei Oudom was
last seen alive, were arrested on suspicion of his murder, following the
discovery of the journalists’ shoes near their establishment. According to
Chhay Thy, Provincial Representative of the Cambodian Human Rights and
Development Association (“ADHOC”) in Ratanakkiri, a blood-stained blanket was
also found in a water tank behind the suspects’ house. The two suspects were
formally charged on 19 September 2012. Witnesses in the case claimed that there
had been more people involved in the murder however the investigation into Hang
Serei Oudom’s death was summarily concluded on the 21 November 2012 and the court
declined to arrest any further suspects. The court also refused to examine the
link between Hang Serei Oudom’s research into illegal logging and his death. In
April 2013, investigation into the case was reopened at the behest of judges
who believed that evidence had not been sufficiently gathered.
Despite
the reopening of the investigation, no further evidence was collected. Before his
murder, Hang Serei Oudom had had a telephone conversation with An Bunheng and
on the night of his murder he told his wife that he was going out for a short
time to meet with An Bunheng. He never returned. According to Chhay Thy of
ADHOC, the investigative judges failed to obtain phone records to shed light on
the phone conversation between the victim and the suspect. In addition, the
blood-stained blanket that was found in the suspects’ home was sent to Vietnam
for forensic tests to prove that the red coloring was in fact blood. The tests allegedly
came back negative.
Hang Serei
Oudom is the eleventh journalist to be murdered in Cambodia since 1994 and is
now the eleventh journalist whose murder has been met with impunity.
For more information, please contact CCHR Human
Rights Defenders Project Coordinator Chhay Chhunly via email at chhunly.chhay@cchrcambodia.org
or via telephone at +855 (0) 17 52 80 21.
Kind regards,
CCHR
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